Modern Woman Health Woes, Solved

Your attachment to your cell phone and high heels is hurting your health. Here's what you can do to fix it

Your Diagnosis: High Heel SyndromeThe Symptoms: Your hip flexors and calves feel tight, and your knees hurt. And, now that you think about it ... so do your ankles and your lower back.

The Culprits: Regardless of how skilled you are at walking in them, heels are the main cause of heel, ankle, knee, hip, and lower back pain in women. The damage they do goes far beyond unfortunate stumbles -- we're talking nerve damage, inflamed ligaments, and a shortened Achilles tendon and calf muscles.

Wearing heels forces all of your body weight onto a small area (hence the throbbing pain in the balls of your feet), a shift that causes a chain effect of problems. "This positioning causes friction and inflammation to the metatarsal area, the group of five large bones at the middle of the foot," podiatrist Phillip Vasyli explains. "To counterbalance this instability, you unnaturally push your knees and hips forward and arch the back." And it only gets worse. Walking in heels also causes the soles of the feet to face more laterally than usual, the arches to collapse, and the soft tissues to loosen, meaning your feet are slowing getting more and more disfigured, Quasimodo style. Cringing yet?